Angry Wisdom: Yamantaka, the Destroyer of Death; Vajrabhairava, the wrathful Dharamapala Heruka manifestation of Manjushri, the Buddha of Wisdom

“When the tantric wrathful deity is understood and related to skillfully, it has the necessary qualities to be a catalyst of transformation. One deity that embodies the power to transform the destructive, agressive aspect of the Shadow is Yamantaka. Vajrabhairava, as he is also called is practiced to overcome emotional and karmic obstacles, in particular the violence of anger and hatred.” — The Psychology of Buddhist Tantra, Rob Preece

No deity is more misunderstood, than the buffalo-headed deity Yamantaka [Sanskrit Vajrabhairava], yet this is one of the main higher practices of the Gelug tradition, and practiced extensively by other traditions. [See “Different forms of Yamantaka” section below.] Yamantaka is, perhaps, most famous in the West because of the intricate and elaborate sand mandalas of Yamantaka:

It is said that when President Nixon was considering aid for Tibet, he saw an image of Yamantaka, complete with horns, and judged that the Tibetan people were primitive demon-worshipers. Of course, modern understanding of the symbolism makes it clear that Yamantaka is a wrathful but compassionate Yidam, whose terrible power is turned against the obstacles to our practice, especially anger, hate, and death.

“Lama Tsongkhapa said, Yamantaka is the most powerful practice in terms of transforming the mind and purification, ” explained H.E. Zasep Rinpoche during teachings at Nelson B.C. on Yamantaka. “It is a very powerful and important practice in this degeneration age.”

According to some accounts, one of the reasons then-President Richard Nixon denied aid to Tibet was an image of Yamantaka in union with his Wisdom Consort. The horns might have been too much for that era, but equally the “sex” played a role.

Not only is Yamantaka the most ferocious of the Tibetan meditational deities, everything about him is fierce and almost deliberately “over the top” in scope and scale:

His name “Bhairava” means “terrifier.”

In his name Yamantaka, contains the name “Yama”, the Lord of Death — although when combined with “antaka” it actually means the “Destroyer of Death”

He is visualized in an underworld, a charnal ground filled with demons, spirits, cannibals — but all of whom he brings under his power

He is the “horned” god, and many Westerners see resemblance to Satan’s horns — although they are more akin to the Greek Minotaur or the nature god Kernunos, or Pan.

He is brimming with invulnerable life-force, symbolized through his potently erect penis.

His “shock and awe” imagery is meant to convey unshakable power that cannot be resisted.

He has many arms, legs and faces (depending on which form), his arms holding many weapons, ripe with symbolism.

He stamps on bodies — not as a killer, but as a force that brings all things under his control.

He is surrounded by flames — but not hell-flames; these are the flames of wisdom — for he is none other than the Buddha of Wisdom, Majushri, in his wrathful form.

Yamantaka, among the most wrathful of the wrathful Enlightened deities.

The many faces of wisdom

Wrathful barely begins to describe Yamantaka. In one of his forms he has nine heads (the central one being a “buffalo”), all with three eyes, fangs and ferocious expressions. In this form he has thirty-four hands, each with symbolic weapons, and sixteen legs. He can also appear solitary, or in union with his consort Vajravetali. He can have two-arms or many. He is normally blue-black, symbolic of many things. Atop his crown, we normally visualize the head of Manjushri, the Buddha of Wisdom.

To the uninitiated, seeing his ferocious image for the first time — just imagine, for example, the early Christian missionaries arriving in Tibet and seeing a near-demonic deity in the temples — he seems frightening, the stuff of nightmares. This is, as it should be. Yamantaka (Vajrabhairava in Sanskrit) is meant to be so fearsome that even the demons — whether you view them as metaphorical inner demons or external entitites — tuck tail and run. Even Yama bows down (the ancient equivalent of Satan or Hades).

Ultimately, death itself is conquered by this towering, wrathful deity, Yamantaka. Conquering death, and the cycle of samsaric suffering, is at the very heart of Buddhism. As the “death destroyer” Yamantaka symbolizes this aspiration, and his meditational deity practice is designed to achieve that goal.

Yamantaka, destroyer of death.

Yamantaka — overcoming anger and hatred

Yamantaka’s ultimate mission is “destroyer of death” (see below)— in the same way, for example, Medicine Buddha’s main mission is “healing” — but, as with all manifestations of the Enlightened, Yamantaka embodies all of the qualities of a Buddha. He does, however, have other well known “specialties.” His practice is famous for overcoming “emotional and karmic obstacles, in particular the violence of anger and hatred.”

Dr. Alexander Berzin explains: “What is it that is going to prevent us from attaining that state of a Buddha? Our own confusion, our own laziness, our own bad temper and anger, our own attachments. This is the real enemy – it’s all these disturbing emotions and negative attitudes in our own minds. So we really need some very, very strong force not to just give in and let ourselves be ruled by this confusion.”

He continues: “We need a combination of compassion – we want to help others – and force and strength that “I’m not going to let all this junk that’s going on in my mind prevent me from being able to help others,” like laziness: “I don’t feel like doing it. I don’t feel like going and helping somebody.” You have to cut through that.”

Yamantaka with Manjushri head.

Destroying death?

How does Vajrabhairava “destroy” death? By helping us to understand the true nature of reality.

Dr. Alexander Berzin explains why an assertive Yidam, such as Yamantaka, can help us break through: “In order to overcome that confusion and laziness, we need the full understanding of reality – in Buddhist terms, voidness – that things don’t exist in the impossible ways that our minds project. So with understanding, we want to cut through these grosser levels with all the confusion – with a lot of strength – and get down to the subtlest level.

As a Highest Yoga Tantra practice it includes generation and completion stage practices, which are the ultimate meditational practices for helping us see reality as it truly is. The assertive and complex imagery of the “destroyer of death” requires us to really concentrate on the task of “creating” (generating) the visualization. Where softer, gentler meditational deities might allow us to relax and coast, Yamantaka’s sheer ferocious complexity demands full attention. Then, just as we master this awesome and frightening imagery — suddenly, we are guided to deconstruct our hard work, to dissolve away the intensely real visualization.

Yamantaka and consort.

In what way can this possibly “destroy death”? It has nothing to do with immortality, or staying young for ever. Destroying death means to understand that we are already Empty of inherent existence, that our egos are a construct. When ego is stripped away, we are no more than part of the whole — but that, in itself, is an amazing truth and joy. And, that whole that we are a part of, Shunyata, is eternal and timeless. Understanding this concept is a deep and vast topic, not explainable in a book or a simple feature article. This is why we have great teachers to guide us. [For a story on Shunyata, or Emptiness, see>>]

We destroy death, in this case, by deconstructing the ego, the bringer of our pain and suffering. It is ego’s clinging to pleasure and aversion to pain that causes our suffering. The moment our parents put a label on us (as children) — we became that label. The ego naturally followed. In its extreme form, the narcissistic personality, ego is everything. In it’s subtlest form, that of a humble monk who has renounced most of the pleasures of so-called reality, the ego is very unimportant. Compassion for others takes precedence, taking us yet another step towards Enlightenment.

Yamantaka with 9 heads, 34 arms, 16 legs.

Highest Yoga Tantra — understanding Emptiness, overcoming death

Alexander Berzin explains Highest Yoga Tantra, such as Yamantaka practice, and how it helps us understand Emptiness (Voidness) and, with practice, ultimately overcome death, for the benefit of all beings:

“Now, normally we get down to that subtlest level when we die. During that period of death – what’s called the clear light of death – before the bardo (the in-between state) and rebirth, we are just experiencing that clear-light level. (Pardon the dualistic way of saying that – that we are experiencing it, as if there’s a separate me. There’s no separate me experiencing it.) In other words, our mental activity during that short period of death is just this subtlest, subtlest level. I think that’s a clearer way of saying it.

“But normally when we experience death, we’re totally unaware of what’s going on – we don’t recognize the potentials and abilities of that subtlest level of mind. We have all these habits of our confusion – all these habits of compulsive behavior based on confusion and disturbing emotions – and because of the momentum of so many lifetimes of being under the influence of these habits, what happens? New rebirth – samsaric rebirth – with another cluster or configuration of these habits being activated and generating the next samsaric life filled with the same types of compulsive behavior and confusion. That’s our ordinary type of death.

“So what we want to do is to be able to overcome that kind of death and instead be able, in our meditation, to get to that subtlest level of mental activity. And we’ve used great force to get down there. But now it’s with a totally calm understanding of reality that we can apply in meditation at this time of clear light in order to be able to get:

That clear-light state to have the understanding of voidness or reality

The subtlest energy of it to transform and appear in the form of a Buddha.

“If we do this often enough and strongly enough, we’re able to stay like that forever. So this is basically the tantra path of the highest class of tantra.”

Of course, as a Highest Yoga Tantra practice, Yamantaka requires huge dedication and commitment. It comes with practice commitments, Tantric commitments and Guru commitments. It’s not for dabblers. It takes daily practice for years to master — and it always requires a teacher, to answer those tough questions that will inevitably arise.

The benefits of Vajrabhairava practice

Yamantaka (Vajrabhairava) is treasured in the Gelug tradition because the great sage, Lama Tsongkhapa, himself an emanation of Manjushri, recommended the practice as “most important.”

Yamantaka is treasured, in part, because it’s a “container practice.” You can wrap other practices around Yamantaka practice. For instance, if you invite protectors, you first visualize yourself as Yamantaka. It incorporates Guhyasamaja and Chakrasamvara practices. Yamantaka practice incorporates both Father and Mother tantra. Father tantra is the practice of the “illusory body” and Mother tantra is the practice of “clear light.”

Dr. Alexander Berzin explains: “You remember I said that Vajrabhairava is the container within which you combine Guhyasamaja practices and Chakrasamvara practices in the Gelugpa way of practicing? He has thirty-four arms, right? The second of the five special features is that in two of his hands he holds intestines and a triangular fire stove. This represents two types of practices in Guhyasamaja: illusory body and clear light. So that means that he incorporates the Guhyasamaja type of practices.”

The main feature of Yamantaka practice is “overcoming the obstacles” or “defeating the maras.” Those include:

The mara of death: by understanding, with the clear-light mind, emptiness, you come close to experiencing death, without dying. As you understand the illusory nature of reality, and the reason for our suffering, you come closer to escaping samsara.

The mara of disturbing emotions: anger to fight anger, wrath to fight wrath, using the psychology of wrathful deities to supress the mara of disturbing emotions.

The mara of aggregates: Once we learn how to transform the clear light of death into the Wisdom of Emptiness, the aggregates of samsara can no longer affect us.

The mara of the sons of gods: With the Wisdom of Emptiness we overcome doubt and incorrect views.

The legend of Yamantaka — a story of anger and death

Legend and myth are the language of the subconcious, according to various schools of psychology. The legend of Yamantaka is no different. It’s essence, of course, is that Manjushri, the Buddha of Wisdom, took on a form more terrible than Yama himself — Yama being the personification of death — and prevented Yama from decimating Tibet. At that level, the symbolism is clear.

Deeper into the legend you gain a lot more in terms of mysterious symbolism and messaging. The story is told of a monk, a hermit really, who was in his fiftieth year of isolated meditation in a cave in the mountains. Just as he was about to achieve a profound insight, two thieves burst into his cave, with a stolen Water Buffalo. Despite the monk’s pleas to stop — just for a few minutes until he finished his meditation — the thieves beheaded the poor buffalo. Then, out of spite, the two thieves also beheaded the monk.

The monk, who had attained great siddhis, became suddenly very angry and, using his great powers, arose bodily with the head of the bull in place of his own. He killed the two thieves, then — even more furious, now, that his bloodlust had risen — he went on a killing rampage all over Tibet, as Yama, personification of Death.

Alexander Berzin, from a lecture on Yamantaka, finishes the story: “So the people of Tibet were afraid for their lives, and they prayed to Manjushri to listen to them. And Manjushri transformed himself into Yamantaka, looking very similar to Yama but ten times more powerful and horrible, and Manjushri as Yamantaka then defeated Yama and made him into a protector for Buddhism.

“So what do we learn from this story? It’s very interesting. Don’t just look at these things as little fairy tales to tell children. There’s this whole thing that you get in the study of mythology – to see what are the lessons behind the mythology, and is there a deeper psychological thing that is going on, and so on. You get that in Jungian psychology, for example.

Of course, there’s anger and hate, to be tamed by our practice. Anger and hate arise from ego and clinging. The monk was so attached to his achievement, his anger could not be stopped — except by the wisdom of Manjushri. The Buddha of Wisdom used fierce appearance to fight fierce appearance, manifesting as Yama with a bull head, only many times more ferocious. All to say, in Yamantaka practice, we can overcome anger — and, ultimatley, death — by understanding appearances are deceptive, attachment is the root of samsara, and escape lies in Emptiness.

Yamantaka YabYum with Wisdom consort. The YabYum represent Father (Yab) Mother (Yum) in union: compassion and wisdom together as one.

Different forms of Yamantaka

There are three very popular forms of Yamantaka, all of which have a main “buffalo head” with Manjushri head on top (on the crown) except for Black Yamari and Red Yamari, who have no buffalo head:

Vajrabhairava with 9 heads, 34 arms, 16 legs: this form can appear in any of three mandalas: solitary (single-deity), 49-deity mandala and 13-deity mandala

Yamantaka is the Anutara or Highest Yoga Tantra aspect of the Buddha of Wisdom, Manjushri. This practice is at the heart of the Gelugpa Tradition and a source of the highest spiritual attainments. H.E. Zasep Rinpoche will give detailed commentary and instruction and lead discussion on the many aspects of Yamantaka practice. A “must-have” for those who have received the Yamantaka Empowerment. Open to Initiates of Yamantaka practice. Visit Gaden Choling>>

H.E. Zasep Tulku Rinpoche with a line from his “long life prayer” which was composed by his teacher HH Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche.

Yamantaka initiation is a serious commitment, usually only for senior students who already practice a Lower Tantric Deity and are ready for a Higher practice. There are two initiations required. The preliminary (Preparation) initiation the night before the main initiation. Both are required.:

Yamantaka Preparation InitiationDecember 16, 7 pm – 9 pm
Yamantaka is the Anutara or Highest Yoga Tantra aspect of the Buddha of Wisdom, Manjushri. This practice is at the heart of the Gelugpa Tradition and a source of the highest spiritual attainments. Since this is Highest Yoga Tantra you should have previous initiations or experience. Higher Yoga Tantra come with additional practice commitments and Tantric commitments including Guru Yoga and Tsog offerings twice monthly. To recieve final initation on the following day, this preparation initiation is mandatory.

Yamantaka Initiation FinalDecember 17, 2 pm-6:30 pm

Pre-requisites: You should have received the Yamantaka Preparation Initiation, or previously beein initiated into Yamantaka practice.
Yamāntaka is a wrathful expression of Mañjuśrī, the Samyaksambuddha of wisdom who, in other contexts, also functions as a dharmapala or a Heruka. Yamāntaka manifests in several different forms, one of which (via yogatantra) has six legs, six faces and six arms holding various weapons while sitting or standing on a water buffalo.
Within Buddhism, “terminating death” is a quality of all buddhas as they have stopped the cycle of rebirth, samsara. Yamantaka, then, represents the goal of the Mahayana practitioner’s journey to enlightenment, or the journey itself: in awakening, one adopts the practice of Yamāntaka – the practice of terminating death.

Commitments: Higher Yoga Tantra come with additional practice commitments and Tantric commitments including Guru Yoga and Tsog offerings twice monthly. Rinpoche gave these as the prerequisites and commitments for this serious practice:

1, Take refuge to Buddha as example,Dharma as path and Sangha as spiritual community

2, Take Bodhisattva vow

3, Take Tantric vow

4, One should consider the lama who is giving the initiations as one of your Gurus

Archives

Categories

All Rights Reserved. Please feel free to excerpt stories with full credit and a link to Budddha Weekly. Please do not use more than an excerpt. Subject to terms of use and privacy statement. All information on this site, including but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material contained on this website are for informational purposes only.

The purpose of this website is to promote understanding and knowledge. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, including medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before undertaking a new health care regimen, and never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website.

Buddha Weekly does not recommend or endorse any information that may be mentioned on this website. Reliance on any information appearing on this website is solely at your own risk.